The sun rose clear and golden and now is almost white, so clear is the atmosphere.  The snow crystals break the white light into all the prismatic colors,—­rubies and garnets, emeralds and sapphires, topaz and amethyst, all sparkle in the brilliant light.  The shadow of the solitary elm’s trunk, here on the prairie, has very clear cut edges and is tinted with blue.  The finely reticulated shadows of the graceful twigs are sharply shadowed on the snow beneath,—­a winter picture worthy of a master hand.

In the enjoyment of such beauty as this is the only real wealth.  Money cannot buy it.  Hirelings cannot take it from the lowly and give it to the proud.  No trust can corner it.  No canvas can screen it from the eye of him who has not silver to give the cathedral care-taker.  February, like June, may be had by the poorest comer.  But it is like Ruskin’s Faubourg St. Germain.  Before you may enjoy it you shall be worthy of it.

      "Such beauty, varying in the light,
    Of living nature, cannot be portrayed
    By words, nor by the pencil’s silent skill;
    But is the property of him alone
    Who hath beheld it, noted it with care,
    And in his mind recorded it with love."

Leave the prairie and enter the forest which crowns the neighboring ridge.  Here are more of those blue shadows on the snow.  The delicate blue sky is faintly reflected on the snow in the full sunlight, but it is more obvious in the shadow; in some places its hue is almost indigo.  This sky reflection is one of the most beautiful of Nature’s winter exhibitions.  Towards sundown the snow-capped ridges will sometimes be tinged with pink.  And in a red sunset the winter trees will sometimes throw shadows of green, the complementary color, on the snow.

* * * * *

You are early in the woods.  Nature’s children are not yet astir.  The silence is profound; but it is a fruitful, uplifting silence.  There are no sounds to strike the most delicate strings in that wondrous harp of your inner ear.  But if your spiritual ear is attentive you should catch those forest voices that fall softer than silence and speak of peace and purity, truth and beauty.

Soon the silence is broken.  Curiously, the first sound you hear comes from advanced civilization, the rumble of a train fifteen miles away.  On a still morning like this one can hardly stand five full minutes on any spot in the whole state of Iowa without hearing the sound of a train.  There are no more trackless prairies, no more terrors of blizzards.  Pioneer days have passed away.  The railroads have brought security, comfort, prosperity, intelligence, and the best of the world’s work, physical and mental, fresh at the door every morning.

Whirr!  There goes a ruffed grouse from the snow, scarce a rod ahead.  In a moment, up goes another.  Too bad to rout them from their bed under the roots of a fallen tree.  Farther on a rabbit scurries from another log.  There is his “form” fresh in the snow.